Saturday, June 21, 2008

Stupid

After the recentGeneral Elections in the country everywhere you go you cannot miss hearing poople talking about it. What more with the recent increase in the price of petrol and diesel. Many people link the price increase to the Elections results.

My idol Tun Dr. Mahathir blamed the the present Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi for the bad results as far as the Barisan Nasional is concerned. I cannot agree more. Many people had been giving negative references to Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. So far I was just listening and I refused to be involved in any arguments about him. But his statements in the last few weeks really shook me from my slumber.

The first was when he mentioned that government servants will now receive their salary every two weeks as opposed to every month like at present. The moment I heard about it on TV I exclaimed "What a stupid decision". My reasoning is simple. We receive most of our utility bills once a month and not twice weekly. Those having to pay housing and vehicle loans also do it once a month. The local authority assessment bills are issued every six months. Some insurance companies also issue half yearly bills. Among annual bills are IWK and Land Office bills. I think only Ah Longs issue bills every two weeks.

So issuing our salaries every two weeks does not help anything. It only make the people involved in preparing our salaries work doubly hard. For this extra work they might claim overtime allowances which in turn burden the government more.

His second stupid statement was given just two days ago. The day before Datuk Yong Teck Lee the president of a component Barisan Nasional party made a statement that his party will propose for a vote of no confidence against the present Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in parliament. Abdullah Ahmad Badawi then made his stupid statement that no action will be taken against the Datuk at this moment because he was only making a personal statement. Personal statement? The Datuk was surrounded by his top party brass when he made the statement and you call that a personal statement? On the table where he was speaking was an array of microphones belonging to the local, national and international press. With that arrangement only a supid fool will say he was making a personal statement. For me you can only consider anybody making a personal statement in the following circumstances:

He sent a personal e-mail to anybody.

He wrote in his personal blog like what I am doing now.

He sent personal messages thorugh his mobile phone.

He answered calls by the press on his mobile or home phone.

I think in a move to prevent the PM making further stupid statements that particular party held a meeting the next day and endorsed their president's earlier statement. What a waste of time.